Carl Edwards captures Coca-Cola 600 for 1st win of season

See photos of weekly NASCAR Sprint Cup winners beginning with Joey Logano at the Daytona 500. Winners were virtually assured a spot in the season-ending Chase for the Championship. Kevin Harvick is defending champion and Jimmie Johnson is a 6-time winner.

CONCORD, N.C. — Carl Edwards didn’t need to be a Marathon Man in NASCAR’s longest race of the year Sunday night. All he needed to do was run the stock-car equivalent of a sprint.

Edwards took the lead with 21 laps to go in the Coca-Cola 600 and was never seriously challenged by runner-up Greg Biffle, who had fuel issues at crunch time.

Edwards snapped a 31-race winless streak, securing his first victory since joining Joe Gibbs Racing this season. It was also Edwards’ first win since June 22, 2014, on the road course at Sonoma Raceway

“JGR is back and these Toyotas are great,” Edwards said. “I can’t believe we won this race.”

Biffle, whose winless streak now stretches to 68 races, saw his engine light go on with two laps to go, forcing him to conserve a bit of fuel, losing ground as he finished almost five seconds behind Edwards.

Hours after he led everyone out as the pace-car driver for the Indianapolis 500, Gordon strapped on his firesuit to race in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway Sunday night.

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“It’s been well-documented how bad we’ve been running,” Biffle said. “I decided if I finished in the Top 10 tonight I’d stand on the door top and cheer. I finished second and I’m not happy.”

Edwards took the lead when a group led by teammate Denny Hamlin went to the pits. By the time it all sorted out, Edwards was in first, followed by Biffle and Dale Earnhardt Jr., who had decided to get out of the regular pit-stop cycle earlier in hopes of making it all the way on gas.

But Edwards was never seriously challenged. He did his signature back flip and then ran into the stands with the checkered flag to celebrate with fans. The victory virtually assures Edwards a spot in the Sprint Cup Chase postseason.

They are still contentious blood brothers. Might as well stitch "Hatfield" or "McCoy" on each's firesuit.

Any chance of a Kumbaya moment was hijacked during a press conference...

Fuel mileage also came into play for Edwards, whose crew chief, Darian Grubb, also called for a pit stop out of sequence.

With 75 laps to go, all top three drivers — Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch and Hamlin — were searching for their first victory of the season.

Hamlin ended up taking the lead on a later pit stop but had issues with a loose wheel and had to make an unexpected pit stop with 38 laps to go, relinquishing the lead to Truex and dropping a lap down.

Hamlin also was dealing with a migraine headache during the race. He needed IV fluids after the race but didn’t seem to have any serious issues, Gibbs said.

“I was more focused on the 11 [Hamlin] because of his problem,” Gibbs said. “Obviously [the victory] was a great surprise to me.”

Truex finished fifth despite leading the most laps, 131 out of 400, in the longest race of the NASCAR Cup season.

Busch, racing in his first Cup Series race since seriously injuring both legs in an Xfinity race in February, finished 11th.

“I feel pretty good,” he said. “All in all I thought that was a great race for us. It’s certainly frustrating to finish where we did. To go out there and have a great run means a lot.

“I got a little left-foot soreness; other than that everything is pretty hunky dory.”

Jimmie Johnson lost control on Lap 275, spinning into the inside wall and hitting the SAFER barrier. He was running fifth at the time.

“For us, the car was just really loose,” Johnson said. “It was fast, but as soon as I would get close to somebody else my car would bug out and get so edgy. Lost it twice, about had it saved both times.

“Once we would get in clean air and get strung out, I could fly up through the field and went from last to fifth there. Then I had a lapped car on the outside and a car I had been stalking on the bottom and then I tried to roll into the top behind the lap car. The thing just bugged out in the dirty air and around it went again. A tough day to try to get the balance right.”

Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon — who earlier in the day drove the pace car at the Indianapolis 500, then took a plane to Charlotte to start 18th — finished 15th.

Pole-sitter Matt Kenseth had issues with a loose wheel on the right rear and had to make an unscheduled put stop with less than 100 laps to go. He rallied to finish fourth.